The Foreign Service Journal, May 2006

known, but perhaps even smaller, number of these survey respondents emphasizing that Iraq is, indeed, a very difficult and dangerous environ- ment in which to work, Amb. Holmes has decided to “define the issues most pressing” about the role of the Foreign Service in Iraq. Apparently, those issues boil down to establishing that Iraq is just a bit too difficult and dangerous a place for the Foreign Service to have a significant role. Ironically, the March issue also carries a reprint of Amb. Holmes’ own letter to the editor of the Washington Times praising “Foreign Service pro- fessionals faithfully carrying out the president’s foreign policy, often at great personal risk, in the most dan- gerous and difficult places in the world,” and lamenting the fact that “more ambassadors have been killed in the line of duty since Vietnam than generals or admirals.” Along with ceasing to crow about ambassadorial body counts while the military death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan rises daily — while yet another Foreign Service member far below ambassadorial rank has recent- ly been killed in a terrorist attack — Amb. Holmes and others need to quit spreading their own misinformation about how expecting members of the Foreign Service to serve in Iraq is tan- tamount to using them as “cannon fodder” or treating them as if they had “joined ... the military.” Yes, Iraq is a war zone; but I’m guessing that we’ve still probably lost more colleagues to motor vehicle accidents in the last three years than in combat. Dealing with the “Iraq tax” is one thing — but let’s not overtax ourselves about Iraq in ways that aren’t productive. While it sounds a bit disingenuous in the face of his other pronounce- ments, Amb. Holmes is correct that the “Foreign Service has a clear and vital role to play” in Iraq. Fortunately, in the same issue (“Staffing Baghdad: Time for Directed Assignments”), Henry Ensher explains not only what that role is, but also why it’s important that we fulfill it. Amb. Holmes should take heed of Ensher’s warning about heading for “irrelevancy” if we show ourselves unwilling or unable to do so. Otherwise, he should prepare for the prospect that there will be more gen- erals and admirals shaping our foreign policy than ambassadors. Darian Arky GSO Embassy Bratislava Couldn’t Put It Down Heartfelt congratulations for the impressive March issue. It was almost impossible to stop reading: Speaking Out, the focus section and the AFSA Annual Report. Books, In Memory and Reflections were good endings. How fortunate retirees are to be brought so close to the present day! Mary Owen Widow of the late Robert Owen, FSO Red Bank, N.J. CORDS’ Lesson for Iraq? It may be too early to use Mitchell Thompson’s proposal to apply our CORDS/Vietnam experience in Iraq (“PRTs in Afghanistan: Model or Muddle?,” March). Thompson is wrong to state that the CORDS paci- fication effort failed because it came too late (Lewis Sorley writes in A Better War that Vietnam was effec- tively pacified by late 1970). He also leaves out the main circumstance that contributed to those years of success before the conventional attack by the North Vietnamese Army in 1975. Several organizational attempts at pacification were tried and failed before Robert Komer and CORDS arrived on the scene in 1967. But the turning point in the pacification cam- paign was the suicidal Tet offensive, which broke the back of the Viet Cong insurgency in 1968. CORDS was able to push a successful pacifi- cation campaign into the vacuum left by the thousands of dead and captured VC. The answer to suc- cessful pacification, we found, was security, security, security. Although CORDS does seem to have been an excellent organizational approach, we do not know if it would have been so successful in the face of a continuing strong and vicious VC insurgency. In Iraq, it does not seem that we have yet broken the back of the insurgency. From reading the Iraq FSJ issue, I have the impression that I enjoyed much more security serv- ing with CORDS in rural Vietnam from 1969 to 1971 than my present- day FSO colleagues have in Iraq. And without good security, one must question how much impact the Foreign Service can have with the Provincial Reconstruction Team ap- proach. Certainly, as Henry Ensher writes, there has been some success and there is much need, but how much reconstruction (pacification) can be done if the insurgency retains the capacity to blow it up? The pri- mary lesson from Vietnam for Iraq is security first, and that was accom- plished by boots on the ground. Alfred R. Barr FSO, retired Washington, D.C. Language Expertise & Population Thanks for another informative and interesting issue of the FSJ in March. However, I read with just a tad of cynicism the report on the 2005 Sinclaire Language Award Winners. I salute the diligence and energy of the winners; gaining profi- ciency in other languages is no small achievement. But, like the selection committee, I was disappointed by M A Y 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7 L E T T E R S u